Kew House II: Bed time

RESEARCH BACKGROUND Kozka's work is informed by artists such as Gregory Crewdson, Jeff Wall and Tom Hunter who explore cultural identity through recreating and re-staging events. Kozka builds on this approach to explore the reconstruction of memory and remembered moments through a rich and detailed mise-en-scène that invites viewers to consider what lies beneath the surface. RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION Kozka uses new technology and advanced capture techniques to create highly stylised tableaux photographs that draw on remembered moments of growing up in Australian suburbia, reimagining and entwining fact and fiction. Engaging with notions of nostalgia, the photograph is a detailed, over constructed recreation that echoes the conscious world and subconscious memories. There is hyper-real quality to the image that adds an unsettling tension that challenges a simple reading of the narrative. RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE The large-scale photography reveals vivid and detailed emotions from everyday life that evokes a sense of tension and turmoil tinged with uncertainty. The work was included in a National Portrait Gallery exhibition and toured to Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery; Bathurst Regional Gallery; Wagga Wagga Art Gallery; and the Mosman Art Gallery.